Sleeping Beauty
by alanish2
Summary: Don't know why I wrote this. Just randomness. It's a different take on the Sleeping Beauty fairy-tale, with original content which I wrote mixed together with parts of the original tale which I, obviously, didn't write .


**Sleeping beauty**

There were formerly a king and queen, sitting at the top of a vast commercial empire, who wanted nothing more than to have a child, but who had been told by doctors that they could not. They went to all waters in the world, yet were told nothing different – she was sterile. They retired home, deflated but not defeated.

They sent out a message to all corners, and the message was this:

"Bear our child, and you shall have all the riches you desire".

At first there was silence. Days, weeks they waited, before the flood. Dozens of women, of all shapes and sizes, bore down on them in search of the riches which were promised.

The king looked over them, dismissing many – heartlessly – for being too big or too small, or not quite the right shape. The queen cared less about these things – a child was all she desired.

Eventually they came upon a young woman whom the king felt was perfect – thin, blue eyed and strikingly beautiful. They asked her if she was willing to carry their child in exchange for their riches, and to this she replied:

"Keep your riches, oh king, for to see the smile on your Queen's face would be satisfaction enough".

And they rejoiced, and they celebrated, and they hugged and they kissed, and they went straight to the doctor, who joined them.

Two months passed quickly, and the woman moved in with the King and the Queen. The joy had since passed, and the woman and the Queen passed each other in silence. The King began taking more interest in her and less in his wife, and he did not choose to conceal it.

They made love; forbidden, and tainted love. And when it was finished, and the two were lying hot and breathless, the King told her not to say anything of it.

But the Queen knew… she could smell it on them, and that knowing shone on her face each time they saw each other, and the woman was filled with shame.

As the child grew inside her, she began to want it for herself. Why should she have to give up a child that she had carried? She began to plan, and to plot, and to think dark thoughts.

The months passed slowly and awkwardly, until finally the day arrived. The child was born a princess, and the King and Queen rejoiced. The child was taken from the woman soon after, but too late. She had held the child, and she knew that she loved her.

There was a very fine christening; and the Princess had for her godmothers all the other Queens from all the other empires they could find in the whole kingdom. Each one was bid to bring a gift, as was the custom. By this means the Princess had all the perfections imaginable.

After the ceremonies of the christening were over, all the company returned to the King's palace, where was prepared a great feast for the Queens. There was placed before every one of them a magnificent cover with a case of massive gold, wherein were a spoon, knife, and fork, all of pure gold set with diamonds and rubies. But as they were all sitting down at table they saw come into the hall a very beautiful young woman, who had carried the Princess inside her, whom they had not invited because the King and the Queen were secretly ashamed.

The King ordered her a cover, but could not furnish her with a case of gold as the others, because they had only seven made for the seven Queens. The young woman cared not for the gifts of gold, she only wished to hold the Princess once again. But the King and the Queen withdrew, and refused to allow her to. They made excuses; she was too tired to be held, they said, and they were too busy; it was time for the giving of gifts. The young woman fancied she was slighted, and muttered some threats between her teeth.

One of the Queens who sat by her overheard how she grumbled; and, judging that she might give the little Princess some unlucky gift, went, as soon as they rose from table, and hid herself behind the hangings, that she might watch, and repair, as much as she could, the evil which the young woman might intend.

In the meanwhile all the Queens began to give their gifts to the Princess. The youngest gave her for gift of diamonds that she should be the most beautiful person in the world; the next reading books for the future, that she should grow to have the wit of an angel; the third gave the gift of training, that she should have a wonderful grace in everything she did; the fourth, lessons that she should dance perfectly well; the fifth, that she should sing like a nightingale; and the sixth, that she should play all kinds of music to the utmost perfection.

The young woman's turn coming next, with a head shaking more with spite than anything else, she said quietly that the Princess should have been hers, and that she hated her for not being. She grabbed the Princess, closing hands around her neck, trying to take the life that she herself had given. This terrible gift made the whole company tremble, and everybody fell a-crying.

At this very instant the Queen in hiding came out from behind the hangings, pulled the woman away and spake these words aloud:

"Assure yourselves, O King and Queen, that your daughter shall not die of this disaster. Your daughter is hurt but safe, and she will grow surrounded by those who love her, and not by this evil woman."

The woman was taken away, screaming threats and curses as she went, and was locked in a cell. The King and Queen were frightened, as they knew that the woman would be set free eventually. To avoid the misfortune foretold by the woman, they immediately proclaimed that they would take their daughter away from there and hide, forbidding anybody to speak of their location.

About fifteen or sixteen years after, the King and Queen being gone to one of their houses of pleasure, far away and in unknown places. The young Princess grew to be beautiful and full of energy. Often she would run down to the village close by, and speak to the people there.

The young Princess happened one day to divert herself in running up and down the palace; when going down to the village, from one shop to another, she came into a little bar room on the bottom of the hill, where a good not so young woman, alone, was sitting with her drink alone. This woman eyed her as she entered, and seemed strangely familiar to the Princess.

"What are you doing there, goody?" said the Princess.

"I am drinking alone, my pretty child," said the old woman, who knew fully who she was. "Won't you join me, and keep me company on this cold, cold day?"

"Ha!" said the Princess, "too young, I am, as I am only fifteen. But I shall sit with you, my lady, and we can speak."

And so they did, and the woman, who hated her lost daughter, told lie after lie, while the Princess spoke with nothing but kindness and honesty. Long hours passed, and soon the pair left the bar and travelled alone to the park.

The woman took from her pocket a small bottle of water, and moved to drink it. Before it touched her lips, however, she stopped and offered it to the Princess, who naively took it and drank.

She had no sooner taken it into her lips than, whether being very hasty at it, somewhat unhandy, or that the woman's curses so long ago had so ordained it, the bottle dropped from her hand, and she fell down in a swoon.

The woman, who was not so good, knowing very well what had happened, called out quietly. People came in from the shadows; men, two of them, who had the look of evil about their person. The woman greeted them and said:

"Welcome, friends. Witness the beautiful girl that I promised you, and know that you were right to follow me! Now have your way with her in her helpless state, and be sure that no retribution will be brought to you, as long as the Princess is never found alive".

And the men dragged the Princess, who was no longer moving, away with them, and they had ideas of terrible things which they would do to her while she slept. The poison that the woman had deceived her into drinking would keep her asleep, no matter what they did to her.

But there was a witness to these foul deeds; a boy, perhaps sixteen or seventeen, had wandered into the park that night, after losing his way in a drunken state. He had spied the two women – the Princess and the evil woman – and had watched them from afar. And he followed the men as they dragged the Princess away, meaning to take her from their grasp and to safety.

And so he found them in a shack, outside the village and far away from civilised people. The Princess was taken in to their lair, and the heroic boy hated to think what they might have been doing to her inside. But he did not rush in; he was more clever than that. Instead, he waited outside for one to come out to the privy, and he struck him across the head with a large stone.

With his enemies halved, he then braved to enter the shack, his stone held aloft, and, hearing the noises made by their foul deeds, he climbed the stairs and burst in on a scene of horror.

The Princess lay naked on the bed, with the one remaining man riding on her like a mad bull. In a rage, the boy attacked the man before he could react, leaving his bloodied and motionless, still atop the Princess.

Our hero dragged her away, and carried her to the village doctor. They did not know her, and so her parents were left to worry while she lay recovering. The doctor did not know of any potion which would rouse her from her slumber.

They threw water upon the Princess's face, unlaced her, struck her on the palms of her hands, and rubbed her temples with Hungary-water; but nothing would bring her to herself.

The days passed, and then the weeks, and the girl did not wake. The King and Queen were heartbroken, but they learned of a mysterious sleeping girl in the village, and they dared to hope that it was their little Princess.

And now the King, who came up at the noise, bethought himself of the prediction of the evil woman, and, judging very well that this must necessarily come to pass, since the woman had said it, caused the Princess to be carried into the finest apartment in his palace, and to be laid upon a bed all embroidered with gold and silver.

One would have taken her for a little angel, she was so very beautiful; for her swooning away had not diminished one bit of her complexion; her cheeks were carnation, and her lips were coral; indeed, her eyes were shut, but she was heard to breathe softly, which satisfied those about her that she was not dead. The King commanded that they should not disturb her, but let her sleep quietly till her hour of awaking was come.

The good Queen who had saved her life by condemning her birth mother to prison was in a faraway kingdom twelve thousand leagues off, when this evil befell the Princess; but she was instantly informed of it by a little dwarf, who had boots of seven leagues, that is, boots with which he could tread over seven leagues of ground in one stride. The Queen came away immediately, and she arrived, about an hour after, in a fiery chariot drawn by dragons.

The King handed her out of the chariot, and she approved everything he had done, but as she had very great foresight, she thought when the Princess should awake she might not know what to do with herself, being all alone in this old palace; and this was what she did: she touched with her hand the Princesses head, and she sighed in sorrow that she was cold to the touch; still with life, but far away from them. The King and Queen ordained that everything in their Palace would be kept exactly the same, so that when it came time for the Princess to wake she would be surrounded by those things familiar to her.

And now the King and the Queen, having kissed their dear child without waking her, went out of the palace and put forth a proclamation that nobody should dare to come near it.

This, however, was not necessary, for in a quarter of an hour's time there was erected a tall fence around the Palace, which was high and strong, that neither man nor beast could pass through; so that nothing could be seen but the very top of the towers of the palace; and that, too, not unless it was a good way off. Nobody doubted but the King and the Queens gave herein a very extraordinary sample of her art, that the Princess, while she continued sleeping, might have nothing to fear from any curious people, and could be cared for in peace.

When a hundred days were gone and passed the King and Queen still hoped to see their Princess smiling and awake once more. But it was not to be them who roused her. The hero boy, who had saved the Princess from horrors unimaginable, and who had not been present when she had been taken away and had not known where she had gone, came upon the Palace with his uncle. He saw the tall fence, and the tips of the Palace towers above it, and he asked:

What those towers were which he saw in the middle of a great thick wood?

Everyone answered according as they had heard. Some said that it was a ruinous old castle, haunted by spirits.

Others, That all the sorcerers and witches of the country kept there their sabbath or night's meeting.

The common opinion was: That an ogre lived there, and that he carried thither all the little children he could catch, that he might eat them up at his leisure, without anybody being able to follow him, as having himself only the power to pass through the wood.

The boy was at a stand, not knowing what to believe, when a very good countryman spake to him thus:

"May it please your young self, it is now about fifty days since I heard from my father, who heard my grandfather say, that there was then in this Palace a tragic Princess, the most beautiful was ever seen; that she has slept there a hundred days, and should not be disturbed, even by one as brave as you."

The young boy was all on fire at these words, remembering the girl he had rescued, and her immense beauty, and believing, without weighing the matter, that he could put an end to this rare adventure; and, pushed on by love and honour, resolved that moment to look into it.

Scarce had he advanced toward the Palace when all the great trees, the bushes, and fences gave way of themselves to let him pass through; he walked up to the palace which he saw at the end of a large avenue which he went into; and what a little surprised him was that he saw none of his people could follow him, because the trees and the fence closed again as soon as he had passed through them. However, he did not cease from continuing his way; a young and amorous prince is always valiant.

He came into a spacious outward court, where everything he saw might have frozen the most fearless person with horror. There reigned all over a most frightful silence; the image of death everywhere showed itself, and there was nothing to be seen but stretched-out emptiness, all seeming to be dead. He, however, very well knew, by the ruby faces and pimpled noses of the beefeaters, that the palace was only asleep; and their goblets, wherein still remained some drops of wine, showed plainly that they fell asleep without cleaning.

He then crossed a court paved with marble, went up the stairs and came into the guard chamber, where no guards were standing in their ranks, instead sleeping sound in their beds and snoring as loud as they could. After that he went through several rooms full of gentlemen and ladies, all asleep, presumably guests of whichever Lord or Lady owned this place. At last he came into a chamber all gilded with gold, where he saw upon a bed, the curtains of which were all open, the finest sight was ever beheld - the Princess, and he now knew her as such, who he had long since rescued. She appeared to be about fifteen or sixteen years of age, and whose bright and, in a manner, resplendent beauty, had somewhat in it divine. He approached with trembling and admiration, and fell down before her upon his knees.

But the two were not alone, and the boy was startled to hear a woman's voice behind him, stern but weary, asking him what he was doing in their place of mourning. And he turned, and faced an old woman, whose beauty was beginning to wane, and whose eyes were red from weeping.

The boy lowered his head, realising that he had intruded, and spake thusly:

"I beg forgiveness, my Lady. I know this girl; I was there when she first fell asleep". And he continued to tell the Lady of what he had seen, of the evil woman and the monstrous men he had felled. And the woman's eyes widened as she realised who the evil woman must be.

She hurried off to tell her husband, who screamed with outrage and immediately ordered a hunt for the evil crow. The boy was left alone with the sleeping Princess, and he looked over her with love and longing. He knew that he was wrong to want to, but he could not resist; he leant forward and let his lips touch hers, gently and lovingly. And, to his and every person's surprise, the enchantment was at an end, the Princess awaked, and looking on him with eyes more tender than the first view might seem to admit of:

"Is it you, my Prince?" said she to him. "You have waited a long while."

The boy, charmed with these words, and much more with the manner in which they were spoken, knew not how to show his joy and gratitude; he assured her that he loved her better than he did himself; their discourse was not well connected, they did weep more than talk - little eloquence, a great deal of love. He was more at a loss than she, and we need not wonder at it; she had time to think on what to say to him; for it is very probable (though history mentions nothing of it) that the good Fairies, during so long a sleep, had given her very agreeable dreams. In short, they talked four hours together, and yet they said not half what they had to say.

In the meanwhile all the palace awaked; everyone thought upon their particular business, and as all of them were not in love they were ready to die for hunger. The chief lady of honour, being as sharp set as other folks, grew very impatient, and told the Princess aloud that supper was served up. The boy helped the Princess to rise; she was entirely dressed, and very magnificently, but his royal highness took care not to tell her that she was dressed like his great-grandmother, and had a point band peeping over a high collar; she looked not a bit less charming and beautiful for all that.

They went into the great hall of looking-glasses, where they supped, and were served by the Princess's officers, the violins and hautboys played old tunes, but very excellent, though it was now above a hundred days since they had played; and after supper, without losing any time, the lord almoner married them in the chapel of the palace, with the King and Queen looking on, and the chief lady of honour drew the curtains. They had but very little sleep - the Princess had no occasion; and the boy left her next morning to return to the village, where his father must needs have been in pain for him. The Prince told him:

That he had come across an angel and fallen in love, and that they had been married the day previous, and that he hoped his father understood.

But his father did not, for he had not seen the beauty of the Princess, and he cast his son out, who was destroyed inside, for he loved his father. But he comforted himself with his beautiful new wife, and her parents who welcomed him in as the twice-saviour and husband of their daughter.

And they lived together for years and years, and were eventually blessed with two children – a daughter, who they called Morning, and a son, who they called Day. And though the evil woman was never found, or brought to count for her heinous crimes, they lived comfortable in the knowledge that, together, they would overcome any obstacle put before them.

The End.


End file.
